Facebook Privacy
So, one of the most common things I hear from people who use Facebook is that they have tried to change their privacy settings but find it waaayyy to complicated to make any sense of it. Which is understandable, especially considering it seems like they change the forms for editing your privacy settings about every other week.
In an effort to help the people in my life with this important activity I'm going to explain how I have my privacy settings set up (this is also partially motivated by this awesome and creepy video that I linked to earlier this week). I make no guarantees that this will be A) coherent or B) helpful; it is apparently a pain to write about filling out forms!
My personal preference for privacy is as follows:
- Only people I have specifically said are my friends can see stuff I post or see stuff about me on Facebook.
- In addition to that, I can mark specific "friends" as not being able to see as much as normal friends, because In Real Life I don't actually know them very well.
- Finally, not just anyone can tag me in something (like say a photo) and it will show up on my wall for all my friends to see. This means someone can't take a photo featuring me doing something that I don't really want to share, and say my mom or potential employees will be able to see it.
I'll let you decide if you want to be more protective or less protective than this.
So, as of October 23rd, 2011, here is how I go about that. Basically, my system is to periodically go through Facebook's settings and double check that I am happy with the current state of things. This way if Facebook makes a policy change that affects my privacy, I'll catch it.
So, let's get started. My intention is that you'll following along on the Facebook page as you read this. Otherwise it might not make much sense. We're going to go through all of the options.
In the upper right hand corner of Facebook, there is a down arrow, let's click it and choose 'Account Settings':
The first page this takes us to is the details of our account. No privacy preferences there. However, on the left, we have more options. Let's go to the 'Security' page:
I know these aren't strictly privacy settings, but they help to make sure only the right people get to have access to your Facebook info. Once there,
- I turn "Secure Browsing" on. This will make it harder for people to monitor the network data and steal your password.
- I turn "Login Notifications" on. This will make Facebook send you an email when you log into Facebook from a new device (like a computer of smartphone). This way, if a device you don't recognize shows up, you know your account has been compromised.
I turn "Login Approvals" on. This will make Facebook double check with you (by sending an email or text message) any time you try to access Facebook from a new device. This is just one more step to make sure when logging in to your account that you are who you say you are.
So far though, this has succeeded in making it so I can't access Facebook from the Android App. You have to create an "App Password" (the next section after "Login Approvals"), which is a little confusing. So if you are obsessed with checking Facebook from your smartphone, you might have to hold off on "Login Approvals" until they have all the kinks worked out (like removed the glaring spelling error in one of the explanations).
Okay, next let's click "Apps" in the left-hand menu:
This shows us a list of all apps that you've allowed access to your account info. What is an App? Well, it is a website that can add functionallity to Facebook (like games) or use your Facebook info (like the aforementioned creepy website). If you no longer use an app, or more importantly, don't recognize an app, remove it from this list. Don't worry, if you remove an app, you can always re-add it down the line. Most likely, nothing permanent has been lost.
Okay, next let's click, "Mobile" in the left-hand menu:
I have my mobile number added to Facebook so I can poke people via text message or approve new logins (from the aforementioned "Login Notifications"). However, by default Facebook likes to check the "Share my phone number with my friends" checkbox on the right. I don't want anyone on Facebook to be able to see my actual phone number, so I uncheck this.
Finally, in the left hand menu, let's click on "Facebook Ads":
The settings here dictate how ads shown to your friends can use your Facebook info. I click both "Edit third party ad settings" and "Edit social ads setting" and change the subsequent drop downs to "No one". I think it is creepy that Facebook may let my info be used in ads shown to friends.
Okay! First of three sections down, two more to go. Let's click the down arrow in the top right and choose "Privacy Settings":
The first thing you are going to notice is three options for your default privacy:
I choose "Custom". Then in the pop up box,
- I change the drop down list to just "Friends" and uncheck any networks that I'm in. This will make it so only people I've actually approved as a friend can see my posts.
- in the "Hide this from" section, I add the "Acquaintances" group. I put people I don't know very well in this acquaintances group. This way I can still friend people but not give them access to all my info.
Here's how it looks after I'm done:
Next let's edit the settings for "How you connect":
I choose "Everyone" for the first three options. This will allow most anyone to find me, and contact me. I'm okay with this, I want my real life friends to be able to find me on Facebook. The options I choose to limit are about limiting who can actually see what I'm doing on Facebook.
For the fourth option, I choose just "Friends". I don't want just anyone to be able to post stuff to my wall.
For the fifth option here, I choose "Custom" and then choose the same settings that I chose for the "Default Privacy" above. Basically, just friends, no networks and I hide from my acquaintances. This fifth option is for what people can see of the things that my friends add to my wall. I feel like the stuff that my friends add to my wall is just as important to keep private as the stuff I myself add.
The next section, "How Tags Work" has to do with having your name tagged in photos, notes, posts, status updates, and so on:
I enable the first option, which means that you have to approve anything that will show up on your profile page. I don't want anyone to be able to add things to my profile page, even my friends, without me approving it first. This will prevent people from posting those drunken photos from last weekend and my mom being able to see it. Or something. :)
I have the second option disabled. My understanding for this is that it is related to other people adding tags to your posts. For example, if I post a photo, and then Keri tags herself in that photo. As this isn't directly related to my privacy, I'm not going to be anal about it. This doesn't prevent me from removing or editing those tags myself at a later time.
For the "Maximum Profile Visibility", I choose the same options as I chose for the "Default Privacy" above. Basically, just friends, no networks and I hide from my acquaintances.
I enable the fourth option, because I have already made it so I have to approve of my taggings. So, again, nothing is going to show up on my profile without my approval.
I disable the fifth option. I basically don't want to ever, ever share my location on Facebook, and if I do, I will never do it at my house or a house that belongs to a family member or friend. So, I don't want my friends to be able to do that for me. I think your location is especially private.
Next let's edit the settings for "Apps and Websites".
We've already covered the "Apps you use" options above, Facebook just gives you two places to edit it.
For the "How people bring your info to apps they use" settings, I uncheck everything except my bio:
This relates to the information an app can access about me if say Keri uses an app. I don't want apps I haven't approved to be able to access anything about me except my name.
I disable "Instant personalization". I don't want any sites to be able to have access to any of my Facebook info, even just my list of friends, without me explicitly saying so.
I leave "Public Search" enabled. Again, I want my friends to be able to find me and be sure that they are finding the right me. We'll get to the public options in our profile next.
Okay! Two of the three secionds down, one to go. Let's click on our name in the top right. This will take us to our profile. Next let's click the "Edit Profile" button. This will take us to the page where we can edit all the info we've added to Facebook. Each info item has a little gear or people icon that we can click on that shows us a drop down allowing us to say who can see that item.
I go through each item on each page (i.e. "Basic Information", "Friends and Family", etc) and select "Custom" and make settings the same as my "Default Privacy" above. Basically, just friends, no networks and I hide from my acquaintances. On a few of them, I deviate from this default. For example, I allow all my friends to see who I am married to, because well, I really like who I am married to. But basically, my goal is to allow certain people to see all my info, and certain people to see barely any of my info. This is a pain, but I feel like it is important.
Most importantly, any information that I feel might be able to help people identify me in real life, I only allow my friends to see.
The final step to setting up my privacy on Facebook is specify which of my friends are acquaintances or not. Basically, anytime you add a friend or confirm a friend, a drop down shows up allowing you to to specify if they are an acquaintance:
So, all you have to think is, is this person someone I want to allow access to all my info? You can of course create more groups then just acquaintances and other, but I find that the more complicated I make it, the less likely I am to stick to it. Whatever system you come up with, you have to stick with it, to make sure that just the people you want can see your info.
You can go back and edit your old friends and put them in the acquaintances group if you want. At the top of all your friends' profile pages are buttons that look like this:
Click on "Friends" to change the groups that they are in.
Phew! That was a lot of work! Finally, if you are really thorough you can see how how all your hard work has paid off. If you navigate to your profile. In the top left you see a "View As..." button. Click that and then type in a Friends name to see what they can see. Also, to see what it looks like to someone that isn't a friend, if you are on your profile page you can copy the URL from the address bar, and then log out of Facebook. If you then paste that URL back in and go to that page, you'll see what your public profile looks like.
I'd love to hear if other people make different choices than I have, and why, because I want to make sure I'm not missing something.
I hope this is helpful!
23 October 2011 09:38am UTC • 139 views • 2 comments
Tagged with facebook, privacy, howto
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2 comments
The Anonymous Poppy
23 October 2011 09:39pm UTC
When did Facebook become so freaking complicated? The sheer enormity/difficulty of controlling privacy settings is one of the big reasons that I quit. There are so many places in your profile that you have to go in order to update privacy settings -- and they've changed around where those places are so much since I joined -- that I never felt sure that I had changed everything that I wanted to. Even when I deactivated my account, there were a few things that I wanted to change before I did it that it either wouldn't let me do or that I couldn't figure out how/where to make the changes.
My bigger problem with the privacy settings (and all account setting, actually) is that they're difficult to understand. I mean, this post is mostly (well, maybe about half) just Benj's explanations of what the screencaps MEAN. I think the language that facebook uses probably makes it hard for the average user to feel certain that they're making the changes that they want to make. Which kind of makes me think that they don't WANT the average user to be able to make changes to their account settings very easily. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid. But I think they could make the account settings far easier to manage, and have descriptions for what each setting means that are far more accessible.
And I guess this turned out to be a really complain-y comment. Sorry, guys! I don't even use Facebook; I probably have better things to do than go around complaining about it.
Seamonster Mom
26 October 2011 06:25pm UTC
Thanks! That was a lot of work but I think it is important.